Patrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire
The American Atheist movement’s crusade to erase God from public life in America reached a new level this week, but they may have exposed a deeper political agenda in the process.
New Jersey-based group, American Atheists, led by its chief cleric, David Silverman, appear to have headed south in search of a soft target – in this case, the small Florida town of Starke.
Atheist activists took an aggressive litigation route by suing the municipality of Starke, FLA in an attempt to have the city remove a downtown monument depicting the Ten Commandments, which sits in front of Bradford County’s courthouse building.
In the process of suing the city, Silverman has forced the town of Starke to allow the erection of his own “atheist monument” depicting an atomic symbol, and placed alongside the town’s Ten Commandments monument (see image below).
This latest clash in Florida exposes the obvious hypocrisy present in radical Atheism pushing their own dogma on society – that of a godless religion worshiping ‘logic and science’, complete with its own set of commandments set in stone (image below) and brandishing the symbol of the atom as their sign – itself not much different from its religious counterparts. Unfortunately, that’s where the similarities end, as American Atheists have proved to be much more radical and aggressive than their religious counterparts in by crossing crucial line – in attempting to remove competing religious artifacts from public view.
CELEBRATING: Besides chasing photo-ops, atheist cleric Silverman is part of a much deeper agenda.
To think that a New Jersey-based political group would descend upon a small Florida town, and proceed to bully local Christians through the municipal courts system? Aside from the obvious political carpet-bagging by Silverman and his Atheists, their move exposes a much bigger agenda…
The radical and highly political aspects of organised Atheism come into view here, evidenced by the group’s crossing the red, white and blue line – from a mere coexistence with other religious groups – to forcing a city to completely remove a faith-based monument from public view. Moreover, the religious monument in question depicting the Ten Commandments has a wider appeal than most people realise, as its Biblical scribe, Moses, is regarded as a prophet not only within Christianity, but in Islam – and Judaism as well.
The Atheist Taliban
There is an inherent irony with Atheist activists, as they rail against religious dogma and the existence of God, while they themselves appear to dogmatically believe that God doesn’t exist. They are radical fundamentalists to be sure, who are becoming more and more bold in their approach.
One can’t help but see the striking parallels between the American Atheists clerics’ efforts to remove a spiritual public structure in Florida – and Afghanistan’s Taliban, who destroyed the 1,500 year old Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, after the Taliban government declared them as “idols”.
AFGHAN BUDDHAS: Before and after photos of the Taliban’s destruction of the ancient monument.
Atheist leader David Silverman, hailing from Marblehead, Massachusetts, inadvertently exposed his own dogmatic status when he let a Freudian slip past saying:
“We’re not going to let them do it without a counterpoint,” Silverman said. “If we do . . . it’s going to appear very strongly that the government actually endorses one religion over another, or — I should say — religion in general over non-religion.”
Of course he meant, one religion over another – that’s why he said it.
In an American society which is founded on faith-based principles endowed in its founding documents, Silverman’s judicial attack on Christians stands on no firmer ground than if Starke’s Community Men’s Fellowship (the Christian group who originally put up the Ten Commandments monument) went and sued American Atheists so as to have their atheist monument removed.
Of course, no Christian group could rightly make such an offensive manuever in America – but somehow, Atheists are afforded the right to enforce their own anti-spiritual hegemony upon the majority. By pursuing an aggressive policy of religious intolerance in this way, American Atheists are in fact taking liberties (figuratively and literally).
American Atheist have crossed the line of coexistence in other instances too, by deploying expensive media harassment campaigns aimed at insulting followers of particular faiths:
“The American Atheists organization is known for its controversial anti-religious billboards, intended by the organization to draw out closeted atheists within religious groups. A billboard on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway displaying the Hebrew Tetragrammaton erected after the celebration of the Jewish holy day of Purim caused outrage from many Jews. The same billboard was rejected by a landowner in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood which drew a reaction from American Atheists’ president David Silverman, who stated that this was a case of religious bigotry. A satirical billboard depicting the Nativity during the Christmas season was also erected in 2010, causing a reaction from many American Christians, including the construction of a counter-billboard by the Catholic League. A billboard in Paterson, New Jersey with the name of Allah in Arabic and the words “You know it’s a myth and you have a choice” drew criticism from local Muslims who “felt it was disrespectful and insulting but they agreed that the American Atheists have the right to put up their billboards where they want.”
Are Atheists Concealing a Larger Political Agenda?
Behind every radical movement, you can be certain there is a political agenda lurking in the shadows. America is now entering an epoch where radical political minorities are exerting their influence over the majority by using the legal system as their chief tool. The result has been an increase in sectarian division across the American social and political spectrum. The ‘political correctness’ social revolution of the 1980’s and 1990’s made the soil fertile for what was to come, and under the Obama Administration this trend has been given both political and media cover in the form of liberalism, enabling it to thrive like never before. In past years, if political agitators from New York came down to a small Florida town demanding the removal of religious monuments, the case would have been thrown out of court, but in 2013, it was accepted – and even rewarded by the courts. No doubt such a move would be championed by a media outlet like MSNBC.
What Silverman and the American Atheists have managed to do in this case, is to reverse engineer the freedoms provided in the US to conduct a type of afront to those same traditional values enshrined in the US Constitution – namely, freedom of expression and faith. This is explained in the group’s own mission, which advocates,“the removal of expressions of religion in public when possibly interpretable as governmental endorsement.”
The key word of course, being “interpretable”, you can see that their mission statement was cleverly crafted by a lawyer.
Atheists will have you believe that they are not political, but alas, nothing can be further from the truth. Beyond the obvious 1st Amendment rights issues, however, there is clearly a wider socialist agenda which is being forced upon the public by Atheists through the use of the civil court system. One cannot forget here that a central feature of Communist revolutions in the 20th century was the removal of religion and the concept of God in society – whereby God was replaced by the State, and God’s intermediary – the church, was replaced by the Party.
Perhaps this is the ultimate vision of Silverman and the American Atheists – a United Communist States of America where God is all but eradicated from society. One can only guess, but if that were indeed the case, you can bet this group will not speak of their fundamentalist political views in public… not yet anyway.
Atheists complain that they have no monuments, but in fact their monuments far out number those of Abrahamic faiths in America and Europe. Take a closer look around you and you will see them everywhere – this of course depends on what you define as a ‘monument’. Think about that one.
Atheists can have their monuments, and religions should have theirs too, but antagonising religious groups simply for the sake of it, or employing liberal legal mercenaries to bully them out of public view – is dangerous. They are what’s called ‘agents of change’ – you will see the same tactics employed around other wedge issues in the US and Europe. Their goal is to disrupt and to fracture existing social fabric – and they are playing the long game.
Legal ventures like this are simply a crass manipulation of the liberties offered in a free and democratic society. After all, the United States was founded on the principle of religious tolerance, and that door should swing both ways, whether atheists agree or not.
IMAGE: American Atheists paying homage to an abstract symbol depicting the atom.
Atheists erect their monument next to Ten Commandments in Florida
Brendan Farrington
Washington Post
STARKE, Fla. — A group of atheists unveiled a monument to their nonbelief in God on Saturday to sit alongside a granite slab that lists the Ten Commandments in front of the Bradford County courthouse.
As a small group of protesters blasted Christian country music and waved “Honk for Jesus” signs, the atheists celebrated what they believe is the first atheist monument allowed on government property in the United States.
“When you look at this monument, the first thing you will notice is that it has a function. . . we selected to place this monument in the form of a bench,” said David Silverman, president of American Atheists.
It also serves another function: a counter to the religious monument that the New Jersey-based group wanted removed. It’s a case of if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
American Atheists sued to try to have the stone slab with the Ten Commandments removed from the courthouse lawn in this rural, conservative town in northern Florida. The Community Men’s Fellowship erected the monument in what is described as a free-speech zone. During mediation on the case, the atheist group was told that it could have its own monument, too.
“We’re not going to let them do it without a counterpoint,” Silverman said. “If we do . . . it’s going to appear very strongly that the government actually endorses one religion over another, or — I should say — religion in general over non-religion.”…
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